“Apple has just pushed an update to the macOS malware removal tool MRT, which brings it to version 1.32 (1.31 appears not to have been released),” Howard Oakley reports for The Eclectic Light Company.
“As usual, Apple doesn’t provide any information about this… which is extremely unhelpful to everyone involved,” Oakley reports. “macOS seems to be the only operating system for which the names of its malware are now strict secrets, presumably to obstruct third-party security researchers.”
“You can check whether this update has been installed by opening System Information [System Report] via About This Mac, and selecting the Installations item under Software,” Oakley reports. “If your Mac has not yet installed this update, you can force an update using LockRattler, or at the command line.”
More info and links in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: In System Information, under Software > Installations, look for MRTConfigData and version number 1.3.2.
“which is extremely unhelpful to everyone involved”
I’m involved, and it’s not at all uhelpful for me.
The author is specifically talking about the anti-malware community, which means not you.
Twitter was aglow yesterday with security professionals trying to figure out what Apple’s obscure number and letter coding means within its latest update.
– This strategy by Apple maybe kind of sort of helps keep the malware rats wondering if their excrement has been blocked by Apple.
– On the other hand, Apple has a very patchy (pun) reputation of sitting on malware reported to them, including samples, rather than acting swiftly to block them.
The message from Apple is clear: Everyone stay out of our security business!
I personally consider that NOT a good thing. The anti-malware community is UN-scientific and NON-standardized enough already without inflicting ~mystery~ into the chaos. Boo on you Apple! 😛
On occasion, it still just works.
MINE WAS UPDATED EARLY THIS MORNING, PACIFICA TIME
MRTConfigData:
Version: 1.32
Source: Apple
Install Date: 4/24/18, 1:16 AM
Diito
So it runs in the background and checks to make sure Malware isn’t getting in my Mac?
Eh? I ain’t never seen ary “System Information.” Dig around in About This Mac… blah blah blah and under Applications, it’s there. Not so easy to find…
Open About This Mac under the apple menu, and click the System Report button, which will open the System Information app. Then click on Installations under Software on the left, and scroll down the Software Name list on the right to the file you want to check, in this case MRTConfigData. If it’s up to date, the version number will be 1.32. If not, see my reply to my comment below about making sure you’ve got Automatically check for updates and Install system data files and security updates both checked in System Preferences / App Store.
Just upgraded to the latest version of High Sierra and did a couple of security updates through the app store until no more updates were available (rebooting multiple times in the process), and MRTConfigData is still showing 1.25 with no obvious way of updating it. As much as I love Apple, the old phrase “security through obscurity” comes to mind…
Turns out I had Automatically check for updates and Install system data files and security updates both unchecked in System Preferences / App Store. So I ran “sudo softwareupdate –background-critical” in terminal after reading this page ‘ https://macops.ca/os-x-admins-your-clients-are-not-getting-background-security-updates/ – and now the latest version is showing up in About This Mac / System Report / Software / Installations.